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Roman Religion and Roman Statecraft in the Middle Republic
Ancient sources foster the notion that Roman Aristocrats employed religion for political purposes, manipulating religious structures in order to coerce gullible masses to do their bidding. Polybius admires the Roman governing class for instilling religious awe in the commons (Histories, 6.56.6-15), and Cicero, principally in De Re Publica and De Divinatione, discusses religion as a mechanism for social control. In the Middle Roman Republic, Vestal virgins were buried alive in observance of religious strictures against unchastity. Romans conducted a pogrom against a Greek religious cult throughout Italy, fetial priests punctiliously observed hoary ritual procedures for declaring “just wars” (bella iusta), and in times of military crisis Romans practiced human sacrifice to propitiate the gods’ wrath. In 190/189 BCE, a Roman praetor and priest of the ancient roman deity Quirinus was prevented from abandoning his sacral duties by the chief priest of the Roman state religion (Livy, Histories, 37.51). The incident reveals conflicting interests between Roman magistrates and Roman priests. Tensions between religious obligations and political exigencies are further demonstrated in this same year when Scipio Africanus delayed crossing the Hellespont into Asia for thirty days because of his obligations as Salian priest (Polybius, Histories, 21.13). The idea fostered by Polybius and Cicero that the Roman senatorial aristocracy rationally manipulated the state religion in order to control the Roman masses is clearly reductionist, and it fails to explain adequately these events and others like them in our sources. This paper argues that Polybius, a skeptical and rationalizing Greek and cultural outsider to Roman society, and Cicero, who lived in a later age when Greek philosophical conceptions and rationalizations had permeated Roman intellectual life, both distort a much more complex reality in roman aristocratic culture in the second century BCE, in which religious strictures often played a determinative role in state behavior.
Christopher Francese (Dickinson College, Carlisle, USA)
How to Bury a Vestal Virgin: Religion and Politics in Ancient Rome
The affair of the supposed unchastity of the vestals in 114-113 BC illustrates some fundamental truths about the interaction of Roman religion and politics more generally. First, religious matters were high on the public agenda, even during this period of supposed religious decline. Second, religious crisis followed military or political crisis. This reveals the underlying and commonly accepted logic that proper performance of ritual and honoring of the gods ensures Roman success, and a faltering of Roman success implies a fault in religion. Third, in this affair a religious controversy was played out in terms of a political one. The larger political dispute between the defenders of aristocratic dominance and the advocates of the common people defined the battle lines in religious controversy as well. The assumption, again accepted by all sides, was that the gods cooperate with the political leaders of Rome. The question was, which political faction would successfully claim privileged access to the divine? Religion and politics can hardly be spoken of as distinct realms: if we conceive of them as separate, then we must, like Beard, North and Price in their epoch-making Religions of Rome (2 vols. 1998), constantly stress their links, connections, and similarities. The dramatic and cruel punishment of the vestals shows that, in this case at least, there was here no easy presumption that the Romans were the chosen people. Rather there were constant attempts by all to earn that status through religious devotion and display, and keen competition among factions and leaders to demonstrate and parade divine favor. Rather then being ideologically focused on naturalizing the submission of the common people to aristocratic authority (as Polybius and many modern critics have argued), Roman religion ideologically naturalized Roman success, while in no way inhibiting ordinary political struggles. This interpenetration of what we call religion and politics, and the use of religion for political ends, far from suggesting cynicism or insincerity on the part of the aristocratic priests (again, the common charge), suggests that religious matters were taken in deadly earnest. Theocracy is repugnant to Enlightenment ideals because it impinges on individual freedoms, stifles political progress, inhibits the free flow of ideas, dominates the education of the young, and leads to deaths in religiously motivated wars. In the Roman case, curiously, the total interpenetration of religion and politics had these negative consequences only rarely before the rise of Christianity – small consolation, of course, to the unfortunate vestals who were condemned to be buried alive to appease the angry gods.
Vladimir A. Goncharov (Nomos College, Voronezh, Russia)
Groups of Senior Priests as the “Government” of Early Roman Community
In the structure of the earliest Roman priesthood organizations (so-called sodalitates), there were groups of junior and senior members (juniores and seniores) charged with carrying out particular sacral and social functions. The seniores included the most influential community members which formed some kind of primitive “government.” As in many other archaic societies, this “government” functioned only in cases of necessity. Lingering traces remained in the priestly college of fetiales which did not have a permanent head and acted only during international conflicts, when special representatives (pater patratus and verbenarius) were promoted from members of the college. Other priestly sodalitates (luperci, salii, fraters arvales) are also characterized by functioning only in certain seasons and even on certain dates, and by election of heads (praesul, vates, magister, flamen, etc.). The role of seniores included the organization of initiation rites, performance of sacrifices and auguries, the maintenance of the system of sacral, practical and legal lore. Later, the groups of seniores formed the earliest Roman Senate which for a long time included priests and fulfilled sacral functions.
Rosemary Moore (The University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA)
Crassus at Carrhae: The Location and Exercise of Religious Authority on Campaign
The disastrous campaign of Crassus’ army at Carrhae, narrated at length by Plutarch and Cassius Dio, is full of ominous signs. These, discounted and misinterpreted by Crassus, were used by both authors to demonstrate the imminence of disaster and the incompetence of Crassus’ command. Contemporary opposition to the campaign was also expressed in religious terms when Crassus and his army left Rome for Syria (Cicero De Div. 1.29), and later seemed to be vindicated by the defeat. But the case for Crassus is more complicated than this. Crassus’ actions throughout the campaign reflect knowledge of the proper expression of military authority in this period, particularly through religious interpretation (Suet. Caes. .59, Front, Strat. I.12, etc.). The competitive nature of interpreting omens is evident within the military context. This is consonant with competition in religious authority in Rome, due to its diffusion among many institutions and persons. However, the competition in the army camp was not between formal religious authorities per se, but between the commander and his army. A measure of the commander’s effectiveness lay in his ability to overcome apparently bad omens with an immediate interpretation that preempted the army’s fear and thus preserved good morale, as well as his credibility. In addition, while the presence of multiple religious authorities often reduced personal responsibility for defeat, the commander’s difficulty lay in establishing himself as the central point of interpretation for the army. The issue of time and context must also be considered. When an omen can be interpreted as favorable or unfavorable, fulfilled or unfulfilled, is a moving target. Immediate interpretations were later justified by the overall success of their interpreters. Obviously Crassus’ interpretations, as seen by his contemporaries and later writers, must have been flawed, and so reflected his poor generalship overall. Yet within their immediate context, they were acceptable. Thus interpretation of omens served as a mechanism of power, though its significance and purpose could vary considerably, and even undercut one another, depending on context, perspective, and audience.
Daniela Cottica (University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy)